10 Years Later and Over $20 million in Sales

Hello Tribe,

Welcome to another exciting edition of Moneymint! We're more than just a newsletter—we're a community of go-getters, dreamers, and doers.

Here are 10ish Things I wish I Knew When I Started out!

Wait a second.

These are not my ideas.

I have not done anything yet, to write this thread.

So, why I am sharing this?

And who is the mastermind behind this?

This is a sort of viral thread on Reddit.

The title intrigued me “10 Years Later and Over $20 million in Sales”.

Well, now its worth reading, isn’t it.

Here it goes:

1. If everything is perfect by the time you launch, you've launched too late. Stop fucking around.

2. Being cheap often ends up being the most expensive choice you make for your business. You either pay upfront or you pay more on the backend, but you're going to pay.

3. The more research and planning you do to prepare yourself for launching your business, the less likely you are to ever launch.

4. There will come a point where growing your business will require you to fire a bunch of customers. It’s a glorious thing.

5. All things being equal, the more options you offer customers, the less likely they are to make a purchase. Offer fewer choices.

6. Build businesses that don’t scale. You can take care of yourself and your family with a simple “but will it scale?” business, while you wait for your unicorn (which most probably isn't happening anyhow).

7. A $100 customer isn’t 10 times the effort to find as a $10 customer. Could as well up the value and price with more confidence.

8. Your “About Me” page isn’t really about you. It should be renamed the “Can I create enough trust to overcome objections” page. Write from that angle.

9. Run ads to Sales page? Nah! Run ads to content, link from content to sales page. Win!!!

10. You can always find a list of things you need to work through first before opening the doors to customers. And I’m here to say, that list is almost always B.S. You can't win from the sidelines. Focus on checkout flow, launch, and fix the rest of the stuff as you go.

BONUS: Best way to validate a business idea is to find another successful company doing the same thing. They've validated it for you. The more of those folks I find, the better I feel about the idea. (Which is kinda the opposite of how new entrepreneurs think)

Here’s my take on each of the points above, along with examples:

1. Take Instagram — the app launched without many of the filters and features we know today. They didn’t wait for perfection. They launched, collected feedback, and iterated. If they had waited until everything was "perfect," they might have missed the window of opportunity. Waiting for perfection often means missing out on the right time to enter the market.

2. A startup decides to use a cheap hosting service to save money. Months later, the website crashes during a critical product launch, costing them thousands in sales and repairs. The cheap hosting turned out to be a far more expensive choice compared to investing in reliable hosting upfront.

3. Many would-be entrepreneurs spend years researching the best business model, analyzing competitors, and waiting for the perfect timing. Meanwhile, someone with less research but more action launches, tests the market, and adjusts based on real-world feedback. The planner is still stuck in preparation mode while the competitor is making progress.

4. As a design agency grows, it finds that smaller clients demand a disproportionate amount of attention for minimal revenue. The agency decides to raise prices and focus only on high-value clients. They "fire" the smaller, draining clients and suddenly free up resources to serve bigger, more profitable clients who appreciate their value.

5. Think of how Steve Jobs streamlined Apple’s product line after his return. By eliminating excessive product choices and focusing on a few key items (iPhone, iMac, etc.), Apple created clarity for customers, which drove sales through the roof. More options lead to decision fatigue.

6. A freelance copywriter builds a small client base and earns a comfortable living by providing high-quality services to a handful of clients. It's not a "scalable" business, but it allows her to live a balanced life. Waiting for the next unicorn idea would have left her in financial limbo, but this business supports her day-to-day needs.

7. A SaaS company offering two tiers — one for $10 and another for $100 — realized that the effort to close deals for the higher-tier customers wasn’t significantly more difficult than selling to the lower-tier customers. They decided to focus on marketing to high-value clients, increasing their revenue with less additional effort.

8. Instead of saying "We’ve been in business for 20 years and love serving our customers," a security software company rewrites its About page to say, "Our software protects over 5,000 companies from data breaches every day, with a proven track record of safeguarding your business." The focus shifts to addressing customer concerns, increasing conversions.

9. Buffer, a social media scheduling tool, invested in creating valuable blog content about social media strategies. They ran ads promoting these articles, attracting readers interested in the topic. Within the content, they provided links to their tool. This approach led to higher conversion rates compared to direct ads to their sales page because it built trust and demonstrated expertise before pitching the product.

10. When Airbnb started, the founders had a basic website and a simple payment system. Instead of waiting to develop a perfect platform with all the desired features, they launched quickly to test the concept. By focusing on essential functions like booking and payment, they started generating revenue and collected user feedback. This allowed them to improve the platform iteratively, leading to the comprehensive service they offer today.

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